James Gurney

This daily weblog by Dinotopia creator James Gurney is for illustrators, plein-air painters, sketchers, comic artists, animators, art students, and writers. You'll find practical studio tips, insights into the making of the Dinotopia books, and first-hand reports from art schools and museums.

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or by email:gurneyjourney (at) gmail.comSorry, I can't give personal art advice or portfolio reviews. If you can, it's best to ask art questions in the blog comments.

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All images and text are copyright 2015 James Gurney and/or their respective owners. Dinotopia is a registered trademark of James Gurney. For use of text or images in traditional print media or for any commercial licensing rights, please email me for permission.

However, you can quote images or text without asking permission on your educational or non-commercial blog, website, or Facebook page as long as you give me credit and provide a link back. Students and teachers can also quote images or text for their non-commercial school activity. It's also OK to do an artistic copy of my paintings as a study exercise without asking permission.

14 comments:

Man, I remember when I was a kid and I totally hated the paper wrapping. It just felt so dry so I always ended up ripping that part off. It didn't make sense to me anyway to have it there since you'll have to rip it off when the crayon gets shorter.

If you had grown up in the 80's you might remember the Mr Rodger's video on How People Make Crayons. It is so soothing to watch. Sesame Street also did a similar version, only it didn't had narration but some trippy background music. Apparently, many other children loved it as much as I did.

I took a tour of the Crayola factory in Pennsylvania when I was a kid, and I remember them going on about how they made the highest quality crayons. I do think theirs have more pigment in them. The Roseart crayons feel a lot more waxy to me as well.

Back when I was a kid we had to grind our own pigments and harvest our own wax from wild beehives! I really love encaustic painting. You can get wax mediums to mix with your oil paints and get some very wonderful, buttery effects. I painted a 20’ x 30’ ceiling mural/oculus of Tiepolo-type clouds with this technique and it turned out great! Very luminous and muscular.

Love these 'how they make it' vids and love machinery, it's rhythm too.

I read somewhere that you can send your crayon stubs back to Crayola and they recycle them, melting them down again. Although if theirs are a better quality (ingredients) I don't know how they would separate out cheaper brands... especially since Conny "Loathsome" tears off the paper labels... Conny...☹ ✏

As other people have mentioned, the Mister Rogers episode containing the "How People Make Crayons" was absolutely fabulous and enhanced my enjoyment and understanding of crayons since then. I wonder if there have been other videos with how other art tools are made, like colored pencils, acrylics, etc?